Certain mobile operating systems, such as iOS available from Apple, Inc. include operating system imposed timeout periods for applications executing on the mobile device. Typically, these operating system timeout periods are designed to ensure that if an application encounters an error condition that does not cause a crash, but instead results in the application entering a hung state for a predefined period of time, the mobile operating system terminates the application. Typically, these timeout periods are associated with certain predefined operations of an application, e.g., the initial launching of an application, the act of moving the application to the background and/or returning the application to the foreground. For example, it has been noted that iOS will typically terminate an application if the application has not completed its initial launching procedure within approximately 20 seconds.
While the termination of applications that have exceeded the mobile operating system's timeout period may work to ensure stability of the mobile device by preventing applications from hanging, the abrupt termination of the application by the mobile operating system provides a challenge for application developers to obtain debugging information that may be utilized to determine the cause of the application hanging. For example, application developers may include debugging software that detects when a conventional error condition (i.e., crash) occurs and records certain state information that may be used later for debugging purposes. However, the mobile operating system's abrupt termination of an application that exceeds the timeout period does not enable the debugging software to collect state information associated with the application. In these cases, the application developer receives no information relating to the crash.